Marginal Revolution links to a list of the most corrupt states, measured by the number of government corruption convictions per capita. I bet you can come pretty close to the top three without even looking. Here they are:

Alaska. For all those who want to believe that pork is unrelated to corruption, look no further than the king of pork itself, Alaska, which also turns out to be the king of government corruption. Kudos to Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake, who is about the only one brave enough in that lost and floundering body to connect the dots between Abramoff, cash-filled tuperware, corruption and pork.

Mississippi. Who would have ever thought the state best known for being the #1 home of jackpot torts and the home state of the Senator who claims to be above the law would be a hotbed of corruption?

Louisiana. Probably the only surprise on the list, since one would expect the home state of Huey Long to be in first rather than third. Heck, in 1991 the state got to choose between a wanna-be Nazi Klansman and a serially corrupt felon for Governor. And God only knows where the money that should have been spent on building levees actually went.

Whether it is the French influence or the long shadow of Huey Long's patronage driven socialist experiment, Louisiana has a tradition of bad government. I remember several years ago the governor's race featured a Nazi running against a convicted felon (convicted in office of bribery and influence peddling, if I remember right).

So one of the problems with the management of Katrina problems is that Katrina hit Louisiana, the US's own version of Haiti. Don't believe me? This is already coming out, and you can be sure there is more:

Police found cases of food, clothes and tools intended for hurricane
victims in the backyard, shed and rooms throughout the home of a chief
administrative officer of a New Orleans suburb, officials said
Wednesday.

Police in Kenner searched Cedric Floyd's home Tuesday because of
complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for
hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in Kenner,
was in charge of distributing the donations.

The donations, including lanterns, vacuums and clothes with price
tags attached, had to be removed in four loads in a big pickup truck,
Kenner police Capt. Steve Caraway said.

Edward at Zonitics has already identified one of the most visible chunks of AZ pork, that is our earmarks in the recent highway bill. These include nearly five million for a couple of pedestrian bridges, plus hundreds of millions for a rail system to run empty trains to compete with our empty buses. Why does the rest of the country need to pay for Phoenix's growth? Heck, we just took the money the feds saved us on this junk and spent it subsidizing a stadium for the Cardinals, for god's sakes. I will note that of the mere 8 people who voted against the highway bill, 2 were from Arizona, including my 3rd district Congressman John Shadegg and libertarian Jeff Flake. Flake, consistent with his libertarian principles (or in retribution for them?) represents the only district in the country without an earmark in the highway bill.

So, to push the ball forward, I will add another bit of Arizona pork. I wanted to include some items form the energy bill, but I can't find a state by state impact. But I can find, thanks to the environmental working group, a nice summary of farm subsidies to Arizona. Here is a summary for the most recent year they have data:

Rank

Program(click for top recipients, payment concentration and regional rankings)

So, unsurprisingly, Paul Krugman and others are arguing that Katrina is a vindication for large-government liberals (One would think we would love GWB, who has been a better large-government builder than Clinton, but that is another topic). Anyway, I think it is worth thinking for a second about the federal government and hurricanes. I will divide the post into two parts: Preparedness and Response, and show that in fact, large central-government thinking is at the heart of many of the problems that are being faced.

Disaster PreparednessI cannot come up with any justification for the US Government taking the lead role in local disaster preparation or protection. The types of disasters are just too wide and varied: Tidal waves in Hawaii, earthquakes in LA, mudslides in San Diego, fires in the west, tornados in the plains, hurricanes on the gulf coast, blizzards in the north, etc. etc. And why would anyone want the feds taking over their local disaster plans anyway? Do you really want to rely on the hope that a national organization has the same priority on your local risks that you do? The resources, the knowledge, and the incentive to prepare for emergencies are all local, and such preparation should be done as locally as possible.

The only reason locals would even tolerate federal involvement in disaster preparedness is $$$. Every local politician loves federal dollars. And even a hardcore libertarian like myself is probably willing to admit that some of the preparedness investments truly are public goods. Take levees for example. I am willing to have them as public goods. However, no one can convince me that levees whose sole purpose in life is to protect New Orleans are federal public goods. Why do I need to pay for them? Why don't New Orleans people bear the full cost of their choice to live below sea level? My family chooses to live in a place that is relatively free of disasters (though if the Colorado River dries up you can come visit our bleached bones as we are consumed by the desert). Why should I subsidize people's choice to live in a location that sits in mother nature's cross-hairs?

But beyond my cantankerous libertarian desire not to subsidize you, those of you who live in disaster areas should demand to take responsibility for your own preparedness. The feds are never going to value your safety the same way you do (as evidenced in part by the 40-year ongoing fight for levee funding in New Orleans) and are never going to understand your local problems like you do. In fact, the illusion of federal responsibility for disaster preparedness is awful. It gives irresponsible local authorities an excuse to do nothing and a way to cover their ass. It creates a classic moral hazard and sense of false security.

I have resisted saying this for a week or so out of respect for the plight of individuals still struggling in Louisiana and Mississippi: If one divides the world into the ants and the grasshoppers (per the classic fable), New Orleans and Louisiana would make the consensus all-grasshopper team. They have lived in a stew of bad and corrupt government for years, mixed with a healthy dose of Huey Long-style patronage that created expectations that "you would be taken care of". Their state officials have for years not only been grasshoppers, but have demanded that they be supported by the ants, and seem lost and confused that the ants didn't protect them somehow from Katrina.

Disaster ResponseIts probably good to have a national body that can help focus resources from around the nation onto local regions that have been devastated by some disaster. But here is the key point. The federal government itself is never, ever going to have the resources stockpiled somewhere to handle a disaster of this magnitude. They can't have the doctors on staff, the firemen waiting around, the medical supplies in a big warehouse, a field full of porta-potties ready to deploy, etc. etc. There is just too much needed, and the exact needs are too uncertain.

What they can do, though, is understand that in an emergency, Americans from all over the country are always willing to help, to volunteer their time or skills or money to aid the victims. More than anything, the Fed's role needs to be to remove barriers from these resources gettting to the the right places as fast as possible, and to backstop these private efforts with federal resources like the military. Take the example of refugees. There are over a million from this hurricane. Of those, at least 90% will be helped privately, either from their own funds or friends or family or private generosity. Probably more like 95+%, if you include resources offered by local governments. The feds role then is to help the remaining 5% find food and shelter. Note, though, that the problem is not dealing with 100% of the problem, it is dealing with the 5% the leaks through bottom-up efforts, while removing barriers that might stand in the way of bottom-up efforts helping the other 95%.

Unfortunately, the feds don't think this way. Most feds, including Krugman type large government folks, distrust private and bottom up efforts. They are top-down technocrats, putting an emphasis on process and control rather than bottom-up initiative. I wrote much much more about the failed technocratic response to Katrina here. I think one can argue the reason that the refugee situation for 95% of the people worked well is that these folks quickly got out of the sphere of influence of the FEMA folks -- in other words, they got far enough away to escape FEMA control. Can you imagine what a total disaster would be occurring if FEMA tried to control the relocation of all 1 million people? But on the LA and MS gulf coast, FEMA is exercising total control, actually preventing private initiative from helping people, and everyone is the worse for it. I encourage you to read more in this post about valuing control over results, but I will leave you with this one anecdote that sums up the big government technocratic top-down world Mr. Krugman longs for:

As federal officials tried to get some control over the deteriorating
situation in New Orleans, chaos was being replaced with bureaucratic rules that
inhibited private relief organizations' efforts.

"We've tried desperately to rescue 250 people trapped in a Salvation Army
facility. They've been trapped in there since the flood came in. Many are on
dialysis machines," said Maj. George Hood, national communications secretary for
the relief organization.

"Yesterday we rented big fan boats to pull them out and the National Guard
would not let us enter the city," he said. The reason: a new plan to evacuate
the embattled city grid by grid - and the Salvation Army's facility didn't fall
in the right grid that day, Hood said in a telephone interview from Jackson,
Miss.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is vying to become the new Huey Long. As head of the House transportation and infrastructure committee, he is in prime position to bring home massive, unnecessary infrastructure projects to his district. Huey Long, former emperor governor of Louisiana, is justly famous for acquiring funds to build some spectacularly unnecessary bridges over the Mississippi above and below New Orleans.

If Rep. Young succeeds, tiny Ketchikan, Alaska, a town with less than 8,000 residents (about 13,000 if the entire county is included) will receive hundreds of millions of federal dollars to build a bridge to Gravina Island
(population: 50). This bridge will be nearly as long as the Golden
Gate Bridge and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Gravina
Bridge would replace a 7-minute ferry ride from Ketchikan to Ketchikan Airport on Gravina Island. Project proponents tell the public that the bridge is a transportation necessity, though the ferry system adequately handles passenger traffic between the islands, including traffic to and from the airport.1 Some herald the project as the savior of Ketchikan because it will open up land on Pennock Island to residential development, despite the fact that Ketchikan's population has been shrinking.

By the time
this is over, Congress will have packed this with a record level of transportation pork. The political formula was simple: $14 million was the minimum for every district. Anybody who sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee can expect $40-60 million, and House
and committee leadership will get $90 million or more.

If you look at it on a per capita basis, the highest per capita earmark spending is ... in the home state of the committee chairman, Young (gee, what a weird coincidence):

In total dollars,
California is the biggest winner so far with nearly $1.4 billion in earmarks. Delaware receives the smallest share, with only $12
million. On a per capita basis, however, Alaska wins going away.
Based on the $722 million in earmarks for Alaska in the bill's current
version, $1,151 would be shipped north for every man, woman, and child in the state. Rep. Young's isn't done yet, however, and before this bill is law, Alaska's share of earmarks will likely increase
even more. Alaska did nearly as well last year; during the failed
attempt to pass a transportation bill, Rep. Young secured nearly
$600 million for Alaska, including $375 million for two bridge projects, Gravina Access project in Ketchikan and the Knik Arm Crossing in Anchorage.

Tom Wilson is faced with a problem many city administrators would envy: How to
spend $1.5 million on a bus stop.

Wilson, Anchorage's director of public transportation, has all that money for
a new and improved bus stop outside the Anchorage Museum of History and Art
thanks to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens (news,bio,voting
record) "” fondly referred to by Alaskans as "Uncle Ted" for his prodigious
ability to secure federal dollars for his home state....

The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure.
Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated
sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs
would be nice....

"We have a senator that gave us that money and I certainly won't want to
appear ungrateful," he said. At the same time, he does not want the public to
think the city is wasting the money. So "if it only takes us $500,000 to do it,
that's what we will spend."

That is still five to 50 times the typical cost of bus stop improvements in
Anchorage.